So, I don’t like to get into discussing politics too much, mostly because I feel like all sides are in it for themselves first. I generally believe in voting for the lesser of all evils. But dammit, I just have some things to say and some observations to share from the various communities I’ve encountered during this campaign debacle . . .

McCain’s campaign posted ads this morning claiming McCain’s victory in this evening’s upcoming presidential debate. What??!

It’s been interesting being on the road during the pre-election time. I don’t know what Kentuckians are thinking because we didn’t talk too much about any kind of politics. Those folks are just trying to keep food on their tables mostly. I saw disturbing signs of economic turmoil out in the country - restaurants slashing their operating hours, unemployment, fuel unavailability - all in an isolated area without alot of money or prospects to begin with. They do, however, really like tractors and Jesus. So, I bet I know how the voting will go - at least for those who will vote, and you can bet that many will not.

Texas, where our current village idiot in the White House is from, actually has a broad base of Obama support - at least in Austin where I’m staying, so that’s nice to see.

In Illinois, the heart of Obama’s campaign, my grandma said, “Hey, how do you like our upcoming lady vice president?” I just grumbled a response and she followed with a surly reply of “Well, then I just won’t talk about how I’m voting.”

As my friends and I sat around last night drinking beer and living the good life and seriously discussing the crumbling economy, someone piped in that the bailout is basically the current regime’s plan to spend all of the upcoming administration’s funding before they have a chance to use it. That made sense to me. Someone else suggested that since Congress wants to bail out America with $700 billion, that they could just cut a check to every single American. I think that’s a nice idea.

If you’d like to read quite possibly the only instance of The Onion newspaper telling the truth about something, check out their editorial expose on Palin. Lots of laughs, but unfortunately, it is all indeed true.

All of you folks who joked four years ago about jetting to Canada - did you ever think it could possibly get any worse? I thankfully don’t watch the idiot box  TV, but every once in awhile I’m in a room with it and this morning I heard a reputable news channel playing in the background and the circus and sensationalism sounded more theatrical than a movie trailer - because my dears, that is exactly what it is. Oh, what we are being sold.

Yes, there are real problems with our economy. The enormous growth we’ve seen in the past decade plus has been built upon a hollow foundation. A market will always correct itself. Problem is, our growth was way too fast to ever be sustainable. Kinda like every facet of what’s happening on our planet. The current trend of humanity is to think in a linear way, ever wanting to grow and expand, never thinking of the circular nature of things. Kind of like the whole concept of when you pick flowers, you never pick them all, you leave some behind to re-establish the population for the next time you gather. Well, not only have we picked every single flower, but we also have over-extended the credit of many years of flower-picking, if you get my metaphor.

I have a real bad feeling in my stomach these days. A feeling that in one year, two years, twenty years . . . who knows . . . that the truth will come out and it will stink even more than Enron . . . and that the pockets of many on the top of this giant pyramid scheme will be fattened yet again at the expense of everyone else.

And so it goes. Status quo. We’re all still kinda fat and mostly happy, and this is enough to keep us hooked in to allowing them to do . . . whatever . . . they . . . want. And the Republicans basically think/believe/want to bring about the second coming of Christ. Seriously, it’s part of their version of Manifest Destiny.

So, I say in the spirit of my friend Kurt Vonnegut, let’s go ahead and let the excrement hit the air conditioning. Because one of these upcoming days, it’s going to anyway, so let’s see how we all can deal with hard stuff . . . ’cause I sit and listen to my grandma (yeah, the one who’s voting badly) talk about growing up during the Great Depression. We don’t know what hard times are. I don’t want to see them per se, but I’d really like to see more Americans with the testicular fortitude to see beyond what we’re being sold and to do something about it instead of simply allowing the circus to perpetuate.

Whew . . . it’s been a bombast of a week.

We went to Chicago to spend a few days in a city and to see friends. Then we ventured to Champaign-Urbana to see Yo La Tengo play a show at the Krannert Center. It was probably the best show I’ve ever seen. As an aside, I was surprised to see a plaque of my great grandparents there. The playhouse in the center is named after them, for their support of arts in the community for many years. I had absolutely no idea. What a discovery!

Our original plan was to drive home Sunday, pack the house, clean the farm and drive to Austin, Texas on Monday. Sunday I was so tired and overwhelmed that there was just no way I could do it. We packed Monday and of course it took me all day. I have more stuff than the boys. Matt challenged me to pack the car in 15 minutes. Yeah, right. I knew I’d be lucky to fit all of my own stuff in the Subaru, let alone his clothes, which other than his favorite skillet and his pimp shoes, is all he’s bringing to California.

Five hours of constant re-adjusting and the car was finally packed. I had to leave some stuff behind and I lost some skin from my finger from trying to wedge cosmetics and clothing into any available crack and crevice in the car. We woke up yesterday morning and grabbed Frank the cat and drove 15 hours with very little leg room to Austin, Texas.

I’m tired, but still having a good time.

Many times over the summer, Matt and I would venture down to the Cardinal Cafe in Adairville, Kentucky for a cup of their .25 cent coffee and air conditioning. Unfortunately, due to the ‘economic downturn’ of our country, the price of the Cardinal Cafe’s coffee skyrocketed to .50 cents, but we kept going anyway. I’d want to go so I could get some writing done, but I was never able to because the owner, who is also the cook, would constantly engage us in conversation.

Monday was our last foray to the Cardinal Cafe and when Mike, the owner, found out, he insisted that we all give him our autographs. He lined out three kitchen tickets on the counter - one each for Matt and Hardy and I. We each obliged, writing a little ‘thank-you’ blurb and signing our names. Mike beamed as he thumb-tacked each one to the cafe wall underneath the daily menu board.

Then Matt and I headed to the Adairville library, a place where the hours actually shorten when school begins. There’s only one librarian, Barbara. When we walked in, I said, “Hey Barbara, how’s your son doing? I heard he was in a really bad car accident. I hope he gets better soon.” She thanked me and after our chat I said good-bye and informed her that our summer in Adairville was over and we were leaving the next day. She tilted her head and then said, “Hey, are you all the ones that Dick Dickerson wrote about in the county paper?”

Dick is our neighbor down the road. He’s the local politician, writer, historian and all around civic guy. We ran into him constantly all summer and almost every time, he’d mention how he believed that someday we’d all be famous. He’s a really nice guy. We liked having him around to chat with.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “What did his article say?”

“Well, the headline was ‘Movie Stars on State Line Road.’”

“Ha!” I laughed. “Yes, that’s us!”

Summer is over at Cantly Farm.

I’ve packed away all of my cute little summer dresses, we’ve taken the glass milk jugs back to the dairy farm down the road and we’ve turned in all of our crushed Pabst Blue Ribbon cans to the recycling place. I took care of my ticket from the fine town of Russellville, Kentucky.

We’re picking up all the The Wall Street Journals that have littered and accumulated on the farmhouse floor all summer long. The last of the laundry is hanging on the line, blowing in the cool breeze. I can finally wear pants and long sleeves again and it’s becoming more and more tempting every night to shut the windows as we huddle under blankets to keep warm.

The abundant ‘maters of July are waning. The drying tobacco is turning from brown to green. The corn, which shriveled to a dead golden-gray color due to a lack of summer rain is being mowed down by the combines this week. How there is a crop to dump in the 18-wheelers parked on the roadsides by the fields is beyond me.

The stacks of records flung about all over the house and sticky with spilled beer are being returned to their sleeves. The statue of Buddha died on my birthday, smashed by Hardy in a drunken stagger. And we’ve just had our last 1.29 hamburger Tuesday at the Truck Stop. We’re cooking up the last of the venison steaks for tonight’s supper. And we’re heading out on a road trip starting tomorrow.

We’ve been a small part of the life, love and drama of some of the fine people of Logan County, Kentucky and Robertson County, Tennessee all summer. We’ve been taken in, we’ve laughed with the locals and swapped stories. We’ve heard of some local people passing away, some have changed jobs and others have stayed just the same. I’ve got so many stories that it just didn’t seem right to publish them on a mere blog.

Cats and kittens, we’re outta here on September 22, the first official day of autumn. Thanks for all the good times and memories of a unique little pocket of time and place.

I’m heading H-O-M-E . . . (at least for a lil’ while) and I’m so excited about it!!

I told Matt that I was going to strap him to the roof of my car and take him home with me. Apparently that was convincing, so he said he’d rather ride inside the car with me, you know, so he wouldn’t get rained on. We’ll be stopping off in Austin, Texas for a week or so on the way back. One of the reasons we’re heading back in a leisurely fashion is because my sublettor needs to stay in the bungalow until the end of October.

So that means Matt and I and Frank the cat need a house to sit or a room to rent for most of October. I’ll be putting my stuff in the art studio. We don’t take up much room. We’re fun as hell. And Matt’s a damn good cook - I’ll be pimping him out to cook meals. I’m looking for takers!

There is a woman who roams the western United States in an effort to repopulate wild areas with intentional planting of indigenous plants in the manner of the Native Americans of centuries past that was destroyed by our culture. I’ve not yet met her. I’ve heard much of her through mutual friends and I hope to someday meet her and learn from her.

But right now Finisia cannot do the work that is so important to her - and important for our planet. She was stopped last month by a forest service agent and told she could not do her planting. She resisted and is now sitting in jail in Idaho. I’ve heard through many a spirited story that Finisia has been jailed many times for her acts of civil disobedience - and always takes the incarceration with an open heart and mind.

But this time is different. Finisia is in trouble, I believe. She needs help. The authorities who don’t understand her and her ways are trying to put her in a mental institution, where they can forget about her.

This cannot happen. Please take some time to visit Finisia’s website - pullingforwildflowers.org. Donate money to this woman. I’m told that the fees to release her from jail and to fix her covered wagon only amount to approximately $550.00.

I recently read an article in an old National Geographic magazine from 1973 about a man who walked the west gathering and cooking native foods that grew in wilderness. The story of his passion made a national magazine! Now here we sit 35 years later . . . and one who is trying only to perpetuate this bounty of nature - and not hurting anyone in the process - is being held and labeled as insane simply for leading a lifestyle that is outside the economics of capitalism.

Finisia is in jail simply for the “transgression” of digging her hands in the earth in an effort for conservation.

Again, I ask you to donate to this brave woman. Pullingforwildflowers.org. If you’d like to send a letter of encouragement, please do so:

Finisia Medrano

Lemhi County Jail
Inmate Finisia Medrano
206 Courthouse Drive
Salmon. Idaho 83467

. . . some green leaf lettuce. Really.

“What do you want for your birthday?” Matt asked the other day.

“Some green leaf lettuce!” I said.

He went to the IGA. Only a few heads of wilting iceberg lettuce were on display. We went to the local cafe, where the menu is centered around a salad bar/hot buffet. I never order the salad bar because it lacks greens. But that day, we noticed the white lettuce was sitting atop a garnish of green leaves of lettuce. Still, it wasn’t enough for me to want to order the salad bar. We sat drinking our coffee for awhile when Matt looked up.

The place was empty of customers. The waitress left the room. The cook left the room.

Matt got out of his seat without a word, walked over to the salad bar, looked around like a kid who’s about to raid the cookie jar and . . . pulled a single leaf of green lettuce out from under the iceberg mix. A smile crept across his face as he ripped it in half and came back to our table. He handed me my half as he shoved his half in his mouth.

I tried not to giggle as I ate my portion of this birthday wish come true. We checked one another’s teeth for any sign of green so we wouldn’t be busted by the waitress when she came back to make her rounds and I realized that I am in love.

I’m back! I could’ve blogged the past couple weeks, but . . .

It’s not because I couldn’t.

It’s not because I shouldn’t.

And you know, it’s not because I wouldn’t . . .

Honestly, it’s been because I’m the laziest girl in tow-w-w-n.

It’s easy to fall off the face of the earth when you live twenty miles out in either direction from the nearest town. I’m not gonna lie. It’s been nice to break my internet addiction, but now I’m back.

I’ve been doin’ lots of stuff . . . sleeping alot mostly, but in truth, I think I must have needed it. I am . . . the laziest girl in town.